Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh
KUCHING (June 4): Describing Gabungan Parti Sarawak’s (GPS) pay cut for the State Disaster Fund as a mere political stunt, Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) has questioned how the estimated RM3 million in deductions could help the people who have been hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
PSB president Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh said the sum was very small when compared to the millions allocated by the state government through the Minor Rural Project (MRP) and Rural Transformation Programme (RTP) funds for GPS lawmakers.
“So the RM3 million or so is just a drop in the ocean. How much can it help? In times of crisis like this, there is a need for real action to help the people.
“Government intervention should be the cornerstone of Covid-19 responses as people will look to the government to utilise its resources to help the people and with the economic recovery,” he said when contacted today.
Wong, who is Bawang Assan assemblyman, said a government must determine what resources to be directed to what areas during a health crisis in order to save lives and livelihood.
He said it was equally pertinent for the government to come up with measures to help businesses stay afloat so that the economy would bounce back after the pandemic is over.
“The state government should play a more responsible and overall role to help the people and not a small salary cut for lawmakers and ministers which can do little to overcome the suffering of the people,” said the former second finance minister.
The state government today announced that the chief minister, Cabinet members, assistant ministers, the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) Speaker and GPS assemblymen, and political secretaries will contribute two months worth of salary to the State Disaster Fund, amounting to about RM3 million.
It also said that some 7,000 state civil servants will contribute about RM300,000 from deductions to their entertainment allowance but they would not include the Covid-19 frontliners.
Wong asserted that the state government should emulate the Singapore government which had come up with four successive budgets.
“The four budgets are Solidarity Budget, Unity Budget, Fortitude Budget and Reliance Budget totalling S$193 billion (RM599.48 billion) to ensure that Singapore can protect lives and livelihood as well as to help businesses stay afloat and economy rebound later. This is what our Sarawak government should do.”
Wong said PSB, if given a chance to rule Sarawak, would introduce and implement two measures to cope with the pandemic.
Firstly, he said PSB would review mega projects costing tens of billions of ringgit such as the hydrogen bus, autonomous rail transit (ART) and second trunk road projects which are non-productive and would not bring immediate benefits to the people during the pandemic.
He said that the PSB government would immediately put on hold such projects and use the funds to save the small and medium enterprises from collapse and protect the employment and livelihood of Sarawakians.
“To me, this is the time for the government to review these projects which, in our view, are a waste of State funds better used for the welfare of our people now. The money should be channelled to save lives and businesses during this crisis.”
If the savings from the mega projects are not sufficient, Wong said the PSB government would then figure out how much state reserves could be utilised to help Sarawakians.
According to him, the reserve fund is meant for Sarawak and Sarawakians during rainy days and Covid-19 was “not just rain but a massive storm”.
As such, he said this health crisis should call for the need to dig into the state’s reserve fund so that Sarawakians can survive the storm.